ArticleImmunity & ageing : I & A2023
Complete fatty degeneration of thymus associates with male sex, obesity and loss of circulating naïve CD8
Article in Immunity & ageing : I & A, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 21 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
21 citing papers in PubMed, 17 citations in OpenAlex.
- Lymph node contraction links sex-biased naive CD8Nature aging · 2026Article
- Thymic Involution and Function in People With HIV and General Population Controls: A Cross-Sectional Analysis From Two Danish Cohort Studies.Aging cell · 2026Article
- Aging-related immune phenotypes are associated with subclinical coronary atherosclerosis in a middle-aged population: a subcohort of the Swedish CArdioPulmonary bioImage Study.Immunity & ageing : I & A · 2026Article
- Article
- GW9508-Induced Activation of GPR40 in Thymic Epithelial Cells: A Therapeutic Strategy to Delay Thymic Aging.Aging cell · 2026Article
- Molecular heterogeneity and differential metabolic signatures in thymic adipocytes.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- CT-Based Thymic Morphology as an Imaging Surrogate of Immune Ageing and Its Association with Coronary Artery Calcification-A Hypothesis-Generating Observational Study.Biomedicines · 2026Article
- Article
- Thymic health consequences in adults.Nature · 2026Article
- Circulating type I collagen pro-α1 chain is inversely associated with the presence of coronary atherosclerosis in a Swedish middle-aged population.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- TREC dynamics as a biomarker of naive T-cell homeostasis in traumatic brain injury: a longitudinal analysis.Frontiers in medicine · 2026Article
- Measuring thymic output across the human lifespan: a critical challenge in laboratory medicine.GeroScience · 2025Review
- Automated Quantitative Evaluation of Age-Related Thymic Involution on Plain Chest CT.Annals of biomedical engineering · 2025Article
- Lymph node contraction links sex-biased naive CD8 T cell decline to compromised antigen recognition.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Article
- Thymic characteristics in patients with autoimmune diseases: a multicentre radiological observational study.The Lancet regional health. Western Pacific · 2025Article
- Development and validation of AI-based automatic segmentation and measurement of thymus on chest CT scans.BMC medical imaging · 2025Article
- An in-depth understanding of the role and mechanisms of T cells in immune organ aging and age-related diseases.Science China. Life sciences · 2025Review
- T Cell Aging: An Important Target for Perioperative Immunomodulation.Clinical interventions in aging · 2025Review
- Association between thymus density loss and efficacy in non-small cell lung cancer patients treated with immune checkpoint inhibitors.Translational lung cancer research · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundFatty degeneration of thymus (or thymus involution) has long been considered a normal ageing process. However, there is emerging evidence that thymic involution is linked to T cell aging, chronic inflammation and increased morbidity. Other factors, aside from chronological age, have been proposed to affect the involution rate. In the present study, we investigated the imaging characteristics of thymus on computed tomography (CT) in a Swedish middle-aged population. The major aims were to establish the prevalence of fatty degeneration of thymus and to determine its associations with demographic, lifestyle and clinical factors, as well as inflammation, T cell differentiation and thymic output.
resultsIn total, 1 048 randomly invited individuals (aged 50-64 years, 49% females) were included and thoroughly characterized. CT evaluation of thymus included measurements of attenuation, size and a 4-point scoring system, with scale 0-3 based on the ratio of fat and soft tissue. A majority, 615 (59%) showed complete fatty degeneration, 259 (25%) predominantly fatty attenuation, 105 (10%) half fatty and half soft-tissue attenuation, while 69 (6.6%) presented with a solid thymic gland with predominantly soft-tissue attenuation. Age, male sex, high BMI, abdominal obesity and low dietary intake of fiber were independently associated with complete fatty degeneration of thymus. Also, fatty degeneration of thymus as well as low CT attenuation values were independently related to lower proportion of naïve CD8
conclusionAmong Swedish middle-aged subjects, nearly two-thirds showed complete fatty degeneration of thymus on CT. This was linked to depletion of naïve CD8
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.